3 Children
by Eclair - Homicidal Pastry
Summary: (Same story I just thought this title was better)Sometimes the past is best left in the past...for the past can be painful. The story of three chilren and how one night changes their lives forever.Dark past theory. Rating subject to change.
1. The Nameless Boy

**Prologue **

The child shrunk back into the corner of the room, his tiny, starved body curled up in a terrified ball to shield himself against his father's drunken fury. The sound of a bottle smashing, together with his father's roars, sent a shiver of horrible anticipation through the boy's body, as he knew only too well what would follow.

A large, coarse hand grabbed him buy the arm in a crushing, loveless grip and jerked him upwards. The child cried out in pain as his muscles were torn by the violent movement, but this did nothing but increase his father's aggravation. And then came the awful sting, the sting of glass being run over his torso in fast, slashing movements, and then the after sting of the alcohol that the glass had once contained. The boy could do nothing but shut his eyes tightly as tears ran in steady streams down his face while he waited for the abuse to end.

Finally, once his father had quenched the fires of his fury with the blood of his own son, the boy was thrown back into the corner of the room, the dust and vermin excrement that tended to gather there stuck to his wounds. The father then marched into the next room and took his place in a tattered old lounge chair before downing another bottle of booze.

Once the boy was sure his father had become too drunk to hear him, he allowed himself to cry, tears following freely from the pale blue eyes, behind the fringe of filthy blond hair that was mattered with blood and dirt. As the pain of the assault subsided, the boy managed to crawl from the corner of his room to the thin foam mattress in the centre, not bothering to switch off the flickering fluro light above him.

Finally he could escape the world of pain for a few more hours, and return to the world of slumber.


	2. The Mechanic

**_The all mighty disclaimer: I don't own Ace Lightning…if I did the show would be a God damn splatter-fest! SPATTERFEST YOU HEAR ME!!!!!_**

_**I would have put technobable in here (or is it mecnobable in this case?) but I just don't know the first thing about cars, so bare with me.**_

_**(Sorry about the stupid character names)**_

**Ren's Story **

The shrieks of the young boy next door made Ren wince as it permeated the thin walls of his bedroom. He had never spoken to the boy, but he had seen him outside his house before, often bruised and with a new scar on his arms or face, looking at him with a distant, broken gaze.

Often he just wanted to walk over to him and tell him that everything was going to be ok, to comfort him and wipe the tears from under his eyes, giving him hope and showing him that there was something to live for. There were so many children like the boy in their city; pain like his was everywhere, in the streets, in the orphanages, in the whorehouses, everywhere.

Yet Ren felt a special connection to this boy, as if he was obliged to protect him, and he didn't know why. Maybe it was because he had silently known this boy for so long, he was only a year or so younger than him, and even though he had wittiness the darkest side of humanity he was able to retain an air of soft, sweet innocence around him. In an odd way Ren saw him as a little brother.

Not being able to stand the boys cries any longer, Ren climbed out of bed and walked towards the kitchen to get a glass of water, he wasn't really thirsty, but it was something to do. His house was like most, linoleum padding covering up the concrete floors, thin walls, more plaster than anything, and fluro lighting. Yes, this was the slums of Illumine City, the part where the eternal day and protection that the light generators offered paled into an eternal twilight by night, and the creatures that inhabited it struggled day to day in an effort to survive it's hardship, clinging to what ever lifelines they had, whether it be love, family, or a hope of a better future.

Ren was lucky, he was much better off than most, and joy was not as alien to him, as he and his father often laughed and joked together, sharing a bond of love that even the destitution of the slums wasn't able to weaken. Ren's father was the local mechanic, which brought in enough money to keep them on there feet, neither of them squandering it on habits and addictions. Ren helped his father at his work, and that gave him the satisfaction of knowing he was contributing to the family, comparing it to how things could have been, life was pretty good.

Ren heard a few growls of irritation coming from the garage where he and his father fixed the machines that had been brought in for repair. Still in his boxer shorts, Ren followed the sound to find the garage light on and his father's legs sticking out from under a car they had been attempting to fix. It was in pretty good shape considering it was a slum car (the phenomena of a slum inhabitant actually owning a car was even rarer) it only had one hub cap missing and most of it's green paint work had yet to of been scratched off.

Ren smirked as his father growled again in frustration at this particularly tricky job. Ren kicked the man in the boot causing him to give out a small yell of surprise. His father slid from under the car with a concerned look which quickly shifted to irritation as he saw that it was his son who disturbed him. Ren noted that he was being to look more and more like his father in each passing day, sharing the older man's brown hair and dark eyes, but not yet his stubble.

"Ren!" his father growled, "I thought you were some drunken thug, you're lucky I didn't clobber ya!"

Ren rolled his eyes, "Same paranoid, workaholic old man as always," Ren teased in a voice that was a bit deeper than a ten year olds should be.

"Watch that mouth of yours, you need to show your dad some respect…and I'm not old!" Ren's dad replied defensively.

Ren chuckled, and then sighed, "Dad, I really don't think it was necessary to start this job at two O'clock in the morning."

Ren's dad simply shook his head, "Ren you're starting to nag like a woman! Your mother was just the same!" Ren felt no pang of pain or regret at the mention of his dead mother; neither did his dad. Ren didn't really remember her, and his father preferred to celebrate her memory rather than mourn it. Ren DID, however, take a bit of offense at being called a woman.

"OI! I don't much appreciate that!" he threw an old rag at his father.

"Thanks, I needed that," his father laughed as he used the rag to whip the grease off his face. "So, if you're not going to go to bed and you're just going to bug me, you might as well bug me while you're getting some work done, but hopefully not when you're half naked, so go and change into some overalls or go to bed!"

Not wanting to leave the friendly atmosphere of the garage and return to the somber darkness of his room, Ren grabbed some overalls off the bench and pulled them on.

"You can finish what I've started here and I'll change the tire," his father told him as he walked into the second part of garage to get a new tire.

Ren slipped under the car to find out what his father had been working on, shining his torch at the underbelly of the vehicle. Ren had spent his whole life around machines; he knew them better then anything else, and only his father seemed to have the same connection with machines as he did.

Before he could even pick up a spanner Ren heard some muffled yells and scrambling noises coming from the second part of the garage. His eyes widening he scrambled out from under the vehicle as fast as he could, hitting his head on the bull-bar in the process. Cursing loudly, he ran into the garage's second section, swinging open the door to find himself stepping into his nightmare.

His father was lying on the floor, his face so white it almost seemed to illuminate the darkness, deathly white. Those dark eyes of his were rolled into the back of his head and drool dripped from his mouth, then down the side of his face. On he stomach was a puncture wound were blood welled, his hand resting on top of it, desperately attempting to stop the blood from leaving his body during life, now nothing but a testament to that failed attempt.

Ren's eyes quivered at the site of it, and he felt his entire body being crushed by life itself, as if the sudden intensity and horror it had gained was two much for one boy to carry. Ren allowed the weight to push him to his knees besides his father's body, not even paying any attention to the fact that his life was in imminent danger.

The assailant, the one that had cut his lifeline, looked down at him through eyes filled with sadistic pleasure. One hand reached down to claim his newest prize, but as his finger brushed the boy's brown hair the attacker heard his fellows begin there chant. He wanted to take the boy, to hear his screams, but he didn't dare miss a minute of the ceremony that was about to take place. Growling softly, he turned and ran though the doorway that connected the garage to the street, nearly tripping over the fly screen door he had ripped from it's hinges.

Ren was unaware of all of this, of how close he had come from having his life taken, unaware of the impending massacre, to Ren, the only thing that existed at that moment was the body of his father. Oblivious to the increasing chaos outside, Ren rested his head on his father's chest, not blinking, his eyes still wide and disbelieving, and simply lay there, not wanting to believe the truth.


	3. The Wild Girl

**_Sheri, is short for Sheridan (which can apparently be a female name too), which is the Celtic word for wild. I also found out that Ace is Latin for unity._**

Life could be hard. Life could be painful. Life could be difficult…and a lot of the time it was just simply unbearable…but at that one moment, for two little girls, life was awesome. They'd just hit the jackpot.

Sugar sticks, crates and crates of sugar sticks, spilling out from their boxes and onto the storeroom floor like some kind of sweet, sugary, multicolored fantasy. The bigger and more cautious of the two simply stood at the entrance, her jaw hanging open, in total disbelief at their unimaginable luck; stuff like this didn't happen in the slums.

The smaller girl's reaction was almost the opposite, with a squeal of delight she ran towards the nearest crate over flowing with its sweet contents and snatched up a hand of the hard candy, long spirals of brightly colored sugary goodness just waiting to be tasted. Little Sheri either didn't care or didn't consider that the treats could be poisoned or spoiled, but then that's what her older sister Lee was for.

"Oh no you don't," she said snatching the sugar sticks out of little Sheri's tiny hand. "You don't know where this has been, I've gotta taste this before you start scoffing it down." Lee was certain that this was too good to be true, what was the chance that, after being pursued by a mob of angry men and fleeing into the sewers and underground tunnels, that they would rise to find themselves in a storehouse filled with sugar sticks that wasn't poisoned, ruined by insects or guarded by a group of cut-throat pirates?

"LEE! You just want all the sugar for yourself!" whined Sheri looking up at her big sister with a betrayed expression.

Lee just stuck her tongue out at the little girl and sifted through the pile of sugar sticks to search for sugar wasps, syrup lice and other nasty things. When she was certain that this particular batch was unaffected, she eyed the sugar stick in her hand with a calculating expression, like a detective trying to wean the truth out of a suspect. At last she put the spiral tip of it to her lips and braced herself for the bitter taste of spoiled candy, but instead she found nothing but the sweet taste of sugar in all its syrupy goodness.

Smiling she been to suck the sugar stick away with a contented face, it had been so long since she'd eaten anything but bread or vegetable stew. Sheri shook her head with an annoyed expression, convinced that Lee was just cheating her out of the first taste of the lollies, but she got over that pretty quickly as she snatched up another sugar stick and bit it in half, it's crumbly inside dissolving in her mouth.

At that moment Sheri's face lit up with sugar bliss and, crunching the rest of the sugar stick in her mouth, she snatched up five more and began to stuck them all at once so enthusiastically that she made slurping noises, it was then that Lee realized that sugar the her sister might NOT be a good combination.

* * *

Lee had cared for Sheri on her own for the last three years. It was strange that their lives had been so difficult, more difficult than many other slum dwellers, yet they were able to so often laugh and muck around.

Lee had been eleven when their mother went into labor with her third child. She remembered it well, as she had to care for her mother to the bitter end of those thirty seven hours, alone, as their father had been out on a fishing trip and Sheri had been only four. Her mother had fought so hard to bring that third little daughter into the world, but her efforts took their toll, and she did not survive the labor. Even worse was the fact that the efforts that she had put her life into had also so been in vain, as Lee and Sheri's little sister was stillborn.

When their father returned from his trip to find a dead wife and child he was inconsolable, although their father and mother often argued, in his heart he loved her more than any being could love another, and although he complained about her tendency to give him daughters rather than sons, when he saw the dead little baby girl in the arms of his dead wife he had let out a howl of despair and stayed by her side for days, in hope that either of them may wake up.

The only thing that kept Lee going was her sister Sheri, Sheri was the only member of the family who ha not been tainted by the darkness of such a deep despair, and Lee was going to do everything possible to preserve that for as long as possible.

Their father became increasingly distant, he didn't leave the room to eat or sleep, Lee used the money left over in the family kitty to buy food but their cupboards were still becoming bare. Then the morning came where Lee had woken up with a small sack of money on her pillow, enough for a few good meals, the same amount her father should have gotten from his last fishing trip. That's when she had finally walked into the room where her father sat with her mother's body, to find him lying in his own blood, throat slit by his own razor.

Even to her own surprise, Lee did not scream, cry or even cringe. She remembered kneeling down by the side of her father's body, careful to avoid the blood and giving him one last kiss goodbye, before hustling Sheri out the house before she could see him. Fortunately Lee had had to give few explanations to her four year old sister so early in the morning.

Against all odds the sisters had survived those three years wandering the slums, where as most children their age would have been beaten, raped or taken as slaves. They had done what was necessary to keep themselves alive, which normally involved pick-pocketing, and both of them always carried small daggers incase they ran into trouble. Their love for each other kept them strong and happy, which in turn kept them alive.

* * *

"It's SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGAR!!!!!!!! Which tastes like SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGAR!!!! Which is SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGARY SWEET!!!!!!!!" Sheri sang shrilly as she span around in rapid, dizzying circles at the centre of the storeroom. Lee had recently discovered that sugar and her sister were a VERY bad combination indeed.

They had spent the entire afternoon gorging themselves on the sugar sticks and Sheri had been getting increasingly hyper during that time, Lee had never been tickle tackled so many times in one day. The moon light was now beginning to shine through a small window near the roof and Lee was getting worried. Whoever owned this shipment of sugar could be returning soon. They had certainly picked a good place to hide it seeing as the underground entrance appeared to be the only way in.

Sheri was having the time of her life, her little pixy like features were set in what seemed like a permanent grin, her red hair spun out behind her as she span in circles simply for something to do. At last she felt as though she the spinning was making the sugar less and less settled in her stomach and stopped, then immediately fell over in a fit of giggles.

As soon as she had enough equilibrium to stand up she drunkenly swaggered over to where her big sister Lee was sitting and attempted a tickle tackle, but was so dizzy that she missed and landed besides her. Lee began chuckling then attacked the little girl with her own onslaught of tickling, which made Sheri squeal with laughter as she tried to push her sister off.

At last Lee managed to exhaust Sheri with her attack and she lovingly hugged the tired little girl, enjoying the moment of happy silence with the child she adored. At that one moment when she let her guard down, that one moment she allowed herself to feel so free of worry and full affection was the time that would be her undoing. The cold blade ran across her throat before she could notice the hand at the back of her neck. Sheri's horrified scream was the last thing she heard before she died, the sound that informed her of her failure to protect her sister from the world.

* * *

Sheri jumped back from the cloaked figure that had so quickly destroyed the life of her protector and friend with the silver dagger that it carried. Others stood around it, their faces all hidden from view by cloaks of scarlet trimmed with silver, but somehow Sheri knew that the looks on their faces were those of bloodlust and sadistic desire.

They advanced on the little girl and she began backing against the wall, the cloaked figures blocking her only point of escape. Three of the aggressors stalked her, while two others stayed behind by the body of her sister, she noticed out of the corner of her eye them strippingher and carving intoher with knifes asshe were a piece of wood and not the body of the sister she had loved.

For the first time Sheri felt emotions she had never experienced before, hatred and anger. Not the type of anger she had felt when she deprived of some material thing she wanted, or when she had to go to bed before she was tired. This anger was both cold and boiling at the same time, it gave her an outlook she had never before had.

Her hand whipped to the pocketknife on her belt and back again before any of the attackers could react. Remorselessly she plunged it into the closest figure's chest then tore it down to it's abdomen leaving a bloody scarlet trail behind it.

She ducked underneath the "victim's" legs before he collapsed or the others could react and ran, faster than she knew she ever could. Scrambling into the underground she ran mindlessly through the maze of tunnelsuntil the sound of chanting brought her too the surface. There she was met with a horrifying sight.

The slums people were being massacred. Blood pooled in the streets and stained the walls of the buildings, lit by the glow of a silver flame which burned at the centre, rising above the roofs of the buildings bathing them in its unnatural silver light. Around the flame gathered hundreds of scarlet cloaked figures chanting an eerie tune, their cloaks stained with the blood of the slums people.

Sheri continued to stare from the shadows in morbid fascination as the chanting of the cloaked figures made the light grow brighter, until the silver glare became so bright that it drowned out the moon and the stars, and Sheri had to look away as it burned into her eyes. At last the fire seemed to gain a climax, and suddenly Sheri felt like she was being bombarded with waves of an awful feeling that she couldn't describe.

She didn't know if it was an incredible sadness, guilt, horror, fear, but it was stronger than anything see had ever felt before. The cloaked figures on the other hand were in ecstasy as they absorbed the energy and strength the flame gave off. Lightning flickered across the sky but was invisible because of the flames glare, and Sheri felt herself completely enveloped in the feeling; all she knew was that she wanted it to end, she reached for her knife.


End file.
